


chasing my tale, yes we are

by WeAreTomorrow



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Coping, M/M, Mind Palace
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 10:12:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeAreTomorrow/pseuds/WeAreTomorrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m not the one with the problem,” Anderson sulks back, and closes the door harder then is strictly respectful. Lestrade glances down at Sherlock, “Want me to call a cab?”</p><p>It sounds like: call a doctor.</p><p>“I’m not broken,” Sherlock snaps.</p><p>“You shouldn’t come here anymore,” Lestrade says, looking at his watch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. silence in unexpected places

XXX

 

_chasing my own tale, yes we are_

_{sherlock/john}_

XXX

 

Sherlock wakes up on the floor, aching.

 

Boring.

 

Been there, drugs and incorrect calculations, they end the same way. With aching wrists, veins stiff under bruised skin. It’s all transient, fleeting. The physical fades and the undercurrent of _boredom_ crashes over the conscious.

 

It’s not drugs this time, though. He’s stopped.

 

Cold turkey, from one second to the next he stops. Because he can and he’s Sherlock and he can hear his brain dripping out his ears when he falls asleep.

 

Nicotine patches, he allows himself those, though sometimes even this feels like weakness.

 

He pulls himself up by his bed covers, vision exploding into color, discriminately red and black, and listens for, well, his instincts tell him to. And while conclusions should be based on fact, there is plenty of fact to support the helpfulness of instinct.

 

“Hello,” he says, voice far away, and is surprised at the silence. He shouldn’t be, it’s his apartment.

 

“Hello,” he says, voice mostly in his head. It hurts.

 

Reluctantly, Sherlock lets go of his questions and closes his eyes.

 

The surface of a mirror ripples, swallowing deeply as someone whispers _in the next room_ , water diluting into blood, _if you need me_ and Sherlock gasps, desperate for air as he surfaces from unconsciousness.

 

Turning his head is painful, dizzying.

 

The sight of his brother sitting on the edge of his bed is more so.

 

“Sherlock,” his brother says and he is not prepared for the confused rush of disappointment, not braced in the slightest.

 

“ _Sherlock_ ,” sharper now, almost worried, like when he broke his wrist and nobody realized for two weeks, but when he focuses on Mycroft, his expression is blank, the corners of his mouth tightening with anger.

 

“How long have I been out?” Sherlock asks, no doubt wasting his precious time.

 

“You were mugged,” Mycroft says, too weary to be condescending, “They hit you from behind.”

 

“I knew that,” Sherlock answers and it is only partially a lie.

 

He can’t remember it, nor the events leading up to it. It wasn’t drugs though, see?

 

There is a flash of shadows flickering across the surface of a memory, like ghosts. He shakes the fragment away, nightmares again, and feels nauseous. His brother is watching him closely, gloating at Sherlock’s helplessness, no doubt.

 

 _Mugged_ , he thinks disgusted, _how embarrassing_.

 

“What is the last thing you remember?” Mycroft asks, leaning forward.

 

Sherlock blinks at the intensity of the question and can’t resist the urge to snap back.

 

“You, ten pounds lighter. Really, brother dear, who died this time?”

 

Mycroft leans back abruptly, angry again, this time at himself for letting the cards slip.

 

“We both know you eat under stress,” Sherlock says grinning, clutching the upper hand triumphantly, like a petulant child. A tense moment passes, both sides glaring, before his brother’s shoulders slump, like cut marionette strings.

 

“A passing acquaintance,” Mycroft says and there is a trace of regret there, of bitterness, “A good man.”

 

Mycroft leaves before Sherlock can do more then process the sentence.  A good man?

 

These descriptions are empty, for funerals and false sympathy, _good_ for them is irrelevant, is inconsequential, is simply to throw Sherlock off-balance, to distract him from– _ah, of course_.

 

The mugging.

 

A victorious smile tugs his mouth upward.

 

_Not this time, brother dearest…_

 

XXX

 

The last solid memory he has, a steady one he can build the foundation of a theory on, is in Lestrade’s office.

 

He hails a taxi, slips in the backseat when it hits again. The dizziness, vision swimming away from him, flashing the edge of an answer like the white underside of a deer’s tail at the sign of danger.

 

“Where to?” the cab driver repeats, impatiently.

 

“Police,” Sherlock says, through gritted teeth, running after the nausea.

 

The truth is always painful, always. The doctor asks you where it hurts, prods until you give away your hand. Yes, it’s broken, don’t presume to fix it.

 

The station looks different, misplaced.

 

Nobody meets his eyes as he makes his way to Lestrade’s office. He must have taken quite a beating, he hasn’t looked in the mirror yet. Not even the receptionist smiles at him and usually she does.

 

No, she doesn’t. She smiles at someone behind him.

 

Sherlock looks over his shoulder, but he sees only the cab speed off through the window. It makes his gut clench, as it turns the corner. He should be somewhere, there is someone he has to be.

 

Lestrade closes his eyes when Sherlock slams the door shut.

 

“I was mugged last night,” he announces, expectant. Lestrade checks his watch, still not looking at him.

 

“Okay,” Lestrade says, sadly, “What do you need from me?”

 

That catches him off guard. Sherlock blinks; he doesn’t know, he came here because it makes sense and his apartment is empty. The two are not connected, but his mind puts them in the same sentence.

 

“What is last thing we discussed?” he asks confidently, recovering, “I received mild head trauma, am trying to sort through recent events.”

 

Lestrade laughs into his hands, a choked sound. His wedding ring is gone.

 

He looks up, finally, and catches Sherlock’s look.

 

“She was cheating,” he says, his smile painful to look at, “With—“

 

“Yes, I know,” Sherlock says, of course he does he just can’t remember right now, waving the emotions away, they’re too constricting, too little oxygen leaking in through the regret, “On to more important things.”

 

The door opens and closes.

 

“Back, so soon?” The voice is smug, grating. Sherlock turns toward Anderson and behind his desk, Lestrade runs his empty hands through graying hair.

 

Sherlock opens his mouth to reply, to cut through the smug and remind Anderson exactly why his parents loved his older sister more.

 

“Miss me already, Anderson?” He says, dripping distaste, cold and untouchable because he knows that will break the defenses the easiest, “Really, this is getting pathetic. You should think about therapy.”

 

He expects the oily smile to tighten, but it widens.

 

Sherlock opens his mouth to make a crack about therapists and his mother’s history, and stops. Something clicks and his head explodes into blackness, like, like something his finger keeps slipping away from.

 

Sherlock blinks awake to the sound of Lestrade yelling.

 

“ _I’m_ not the one with the problem,” Anderson sulks back, and closes the door harder then is strictly respectful. Lestrade glances down at Sherlock, “Want me to call a cab?”

 

It sounds like, _call a doctor_.

 

“I’m not broken,” Sherlock snaps.

 

“You shouldn’t come here anymore,” Lestrade says, looking at his watch.

 

Sherlock wants to say, _you came to me_ , but can’t figure out why he would. He limps out the front door and doesn’t know why he feels so damn unbalanced.

 

XXX

 

He walks.

 

Partially to spite Lestrade and the way he still has no answers but mostly because the idea of a taxi makes him feel itchy and he has no money. Something big is happening, something just out of reach.

 

His frontal lobe hurts.

 

“Sherlock,” an unfamiliar voice says, excited, “Oh my god, it’s really you, isn’t it?”

 

He turns towards a blonde girl, red mouth parted in an ‘o’ of surprise. Early twenties, student, the name tag of her part time job still attached to her shirt.

 

“Dorothy,” he says, shaking her extended hand, “Have we met?”

She doesn’t seem surprised that he knows her name, just pleased.

 

It feels a little too much like coincidence. She might know something, doesn’t hurt to be polite. He smiles and she giggles; it’s not that he doesn’t know how to do this, it’s that he doesn’t care.

 

“Oh, I wish,” she sighs, “I just read the blog.”

 

Sherlock raises his eyebrow. Unless, in his weakened state, he’s misread her, then there is very little chance that she reads, let alone understands, half of what he writes on his blog. This is not unkind, this is truth.

 

 _Most people are_ , he almost reassures her. Idiots.

 

“Can I have an autography?” she asks, eyes hopeful.

 

Sherlock is caught off-guard again, and irritated. He hates being surprised, so rarely is and yet, today is a long string of unexplained moments and pain.

 

“Actually,” Sherlock says, “I’m in the middle of an important investigation.”

 

Her eyes widen and she looks around in surprise; it’s almost comical.

 

“Wait until I tell my friends I helped you on a case!”

 

Sherlock leaves without explaining to her that, no, she has not helped him on the case, not in the slightest. Only given him more loose ends and untied string. He’s starting to feel like the mouse.

 

XXX

 


	2. Chapter 2

XXX

 

_chasing my own tale, yes we are_

_{sherlock/john}_

XXX

 

His apartment is empty. Of course. It is his apartment, after all.

 

“I was mugged,” Sherlock says, to the wall. The wallpaper covering has been ripped off, violently, emotionally, the edges uneven. Like country shorelines that interlocked, once, but don’t now because of time and erosion and other such factors. It might even have been him—the torn wallpaper—in a fit of boredom, or anger. The memory is vague, unrelated.

 

His mind putting facts together in illogical sequences.

 

“I was mugged,” Sherlock repeats, to no one.

 

The click of the key in the door is not startling because he has heard the approaching steps. But the sound jolts something loose, and he closes his eyes to remember as the landlady shuffles in. The sight of her dressed in black makes the space between his eyes hurt.

 

“Sherlock,” the old woman starts. He convicted her husband once, and she’d been grateful to him ever since. It was an in-between case, barely worth the effort.

 

“Shut up, Mrs. Hudson,” he says, voice tight.

 

It gets closer, the answer. He can hear it, rolling forward from the blocked off part of his mind as he tilts his head at just the right angle.

 

“I’m leaving, Sherlock,” she says, and bursts into tears, “I can’t do it, I’m sorry.”

 

And then, it’s gone.

 

Frustrated, he looks at her. It’s pathetic really, the sniveling, the tears. Her wrinkled hands shake as she presses a handkerchief against her mouth, lips pressed together like the flatline of a ER machine. It disgusts him, this human weakness. Emotions are worse than disease, and incurable.

 

Worse still, they are exulted by the population, salivated after in cheap novels and cinema films.

 

“Goodbye then,” he says, coldly, and turns away.

 

“I’m sorry,” she says again, “Just call, if you need anything.”

 

She lingers in the doorframe, hiccupping between sobs, waiting for a response. No, not just a response. He wonders what she expects from him, eyes so hopefully wide, wet. Is it age, or was she always this needy?

 

He thinks, maybe, he tolerated her once.

 

“Out!” Sherlock shouts at her, loosing patience; she snatches her withered hands from the doorframe and he slams the door shut in her surprised face. Behind wood, the sobs erupt with new violence.

 

 _I can’t stand them_ , he thinks, _all of these people_.

 

He falls asleep on the couch before he can stop himself, thoughts liquid and deep. He takes a deep breath and tumbles headfirst into a dream: the surface breaks unevenly, as most things do, desperately _no_ before the last breathe leaves wet lungs, _that’s what friends are for_ but the water is sliced into moments small enough to swallow. The better for your intellectual digestion, my dear.

 

And Sherlock wakes up saying, “Why would I need you?”

 

XXX

 

Coffee, that’s what he needs.

 

For the headache and the sluggishness. It also acts nicely as an alternative source of nutrition; he can’t remember the last time he ate. Streetlights flood in through window, across the empty kitchen sink; it’s not a good sign. This place looks sterile, unlived in, abandoned. He cannot explain why that last word fits best.

 

Sherlock considers the gleaming coffee machine wordlessly, calculating. Not worth the effort. It must be Mrs. Hudson’s, or another one of his brother’s attempts at humor. His stomach is suddenly tight anyway.

 

 _Tea_ , he decides. Good enough.

 

As the water heats, Sherlock find Earl Grey in one of the cabinets; not his favorite. He can’t remember buying it but isn’t concerned—these kind of details are often deleted out of sheer distaste for the domesticity of the act. Sherlock doesn’t like reminders that he is only human. He opens the fridge, looking for a experiment to distract him while the tea seeps.The milk cartoon in the door is spoiling, edges soggy. The developing fungi is an unusual color, the new preservatives evidently not as natural as the public has been led to believe. This is why he doesn’t bother buying organic.

 

That’s not what makes him frown.

 

 _Mycroft_ , he sulks to himself, _not funny_. He must have a talk with his brother about humor and personal boundaries.

 

Sherlock’s experiments have all been rearranged to the upper shelf of the fridge, crowded together even as the lower ones stand empty. A wave of vertigo hits him and he quickly shuts the fridge, nauseated. His stomach clenches, unclenches, rolls. He presses a hand against his temple, startled to find his skin hot with fever or maybe fear, adrenalin rushing his unbraced system like the best paid of mercenaries.

 

When Sherlock uncurls slowly from fetal position, the tea has seeped too strongly to be enjoyable. Hands clenched white at the knuckles, he dumps it and leaves.


End file.
